（SINGAPORE, 31.07.2025） According to China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs, last year 6.106 million couples registered for marriage in the country, marking a year-on-year decrease of 20.5% , reversing the turnaround climb in 2023 which disrupted the continuous fall since 2014, and hitting a new low since official records were first kept on marriage numbers in 1980.
The 2024 Statistical Bulletin on the Progress of Civil Affairs released by the ministry today stated that 6.106 million couples legally registered their marriage last year at 4,190 marriage registration offices under it or affiliated to it located across the country. The marriage rate was 4.3 couples per thousand Chinese citizens, a drop of 0.11 percentage points from the year before.
The statistics also show a total of 3.513 million couples legally completed their divorce procedures, including 2.622 million who de-registered their marriage with civil affairs departments and 891,000 through court rulings or mediation. The divorce rate stood at 2.5 couples per thousand Chinese.
The data also reflect the age distribution among the 6.106 million married couples in 2024: about 1.6 million individuals from the age group of 20 to 24: about 4 million for ages 25 to 29; about 4 million for ages 30 to 39; and about 2 million for age 40 and above.
According to a report from Sina Finance, the financial information platform operated by Sina Corporation, only 1.81 million couples registered for marriage in the first quarter of this year, a decrease of 140,000 compared to the same period last year.
Sina Finance, citing Chinese scholars, noted that young Chinese born in the 1990s and 2000s are increasingly inclined to delay or even forgo marriage. Meanwhile, many parents born in the 1970s are no longer pressuring their children to get married.
The main reasons for this singlehood trend include high living pressures among young people, low incomes, and high monthly expenses. Many young people are therefore reluctant to take on the responsibilities of starting a family. Parents, understanding their children’s difficulties, are also less likely to urge them to marry.
Another factor is the high cost of getting married. Many young people report that marriage expenses, including monetary gifts for the bride’s family, spendings on wedding ceremonies, and purchase of housing, can easily exceed one million yuan (about S$181,000), likely to exhaust their parents’ life savings. This heavy financial burden has caused many parents to worry about their children’s marriage and stop urging them to get married.
Experts believe that the declining marriage rate may continue and become a long-term trend. According to the latest statistics, by the end of 2023, the number of single individuals aged 15 and above in China had reached approximately 240 million. The trend in 2024 is expected to surpass 300 million. The term “single” includes young people who have not yet get married, divorcees, widows or widowers, and adults who have not entered into a marital relationship.
China’s number of new marriages peaked in 2013 at 13.46 million couples but has been falling steadily since 2014. Except for the brief rise in 2023 to 7.78 million couples, the downward trend has largely continued since 2019 when the number dropped below 10 million couples. In 2020 it fell below 9 million; in 2021 below 8 million; and in 2022 below 7 million. The temporary bulge in 2023 is generally attributed to couples making up for their weddings which had been postponed during the Covid pandemic.
Compared with the peak in 2013, the number of marriages has decreased by 49.3% over nine years, nearly having halved. Last year’s figure was a new low.
Meanwhile, China’s legal marriage process has scrapped the need for at least one party to present his or her household registration booklet to prove residence in the location where a couple apply for their marriage certificate. On May 10 this year, the so-called “nationwide access system” officially kicked off across the country, allowing couples to provide only their resident ID cards and a signed declaration stating that they are unmarried and that they are not directly related by blood. With these, they can obtain a marriage certificate at any authorized marriage registration office in the country.
According to demographics expert He Yafu, this system of nationwide access to marriage registration makes things convenient for couples and may help boost the marriage rate to some extent.
A report by the online Jiemian News noted that after the new policy took effect, there was a surge in marriage registration appointments and processing across the country. Also, as May 20 and May 21 are popular wedding dates due to their pronunciations sounding like “I love you” in Chinese, marriage registration offices in many places were overwhelmed with bookings on these two days this year.
Ding Changfa, associate professor of economics at Xiamen University, forecast that marriage registration will also see a huge shift to some places. Regions with large inflows of people, such as the Pearl River Delta, the Yangtze River Delta, and the Beijing-Tianjin area, will see an increased share of the nation’s marriage registrations. Conversely, smaller cities and county-level areas with significant population outflows will see a noticeable decline.
But would such reforms help turn around the tide of singlehood among the young remains to be seen, questioned China’s experts.
